A friend of ours recently sent us an article about growing food from your current food scraps. What a cool idea – that I have unfortunately never thought of myself. This time of year we’re so focused on planning our gardens, purchasing seeds, etc., it’s neat to now be able to mix some of these ideas into our garden plans.
As many of you gardeners know, growing vegetables requires a little know how, time, patience, and TLC. Below are some ideas for you to grow some our your own vegetables while skipping a few of these steps. What a great way to save some money on fresh produce this summer, without a lot of effort.
Scallions: Simply put the root ends of the scallions in a jar of water and place them in the sun. Aside from changing the water every few days, the scallions will just regrow themselves.
Lemongrass: Same as above for the scallions with the exception of transferring the lemongrass to a garden bed after it starts to grow again.
Celery: Keep the root end intact and transfer to a glass jar of water. Keep in the jar for one week after you see new growth, then transfer it to a garden bed. Within a few weeks you should have a whole new head of celery.
Romaine Lettuce: Same as above for celery.
Ginger: Take the last little nub of ginger and place it in a pot of organic potting soil. It will start to sprout new shoots and roots shortly after planting.
Potatoes: When you see one of your potatoes “growing eyes,” cut it into one inch pieces being sure to leave one to two eyes per piece. Let the cut pieces sit out for a few days, allowing it to dry out and callous over. Plant the pieces eight inches deep in organic soil and they will take off.
Garlic: Take one clove of garlic and plant it root side down in organic soil. When shoots start forming, cut them back so the growth focuses on the the bulb and not the shoot.
Onions: Save and plant the root end of your onions. Just cover the root end plus half an inch of the actual onion with organic soil and place it somewhere in a full of sun.
We so so excited to try this for two reasons: (1) We tried to grow onions and garlic last year and they failed. (2) The others on this list we’ve never attempted before, but would love to have them as garden staples! To keep our produce organic we’ll be buying our “starter” scraps from our usual organic food source and replanted them using organic compost and soil. We personally wouldn’t replant any of these with scraps that weren’t certified organic but the choice is your’s.
Thanks Nancy from Whole Foods in Nor Cal!
Take Care and Get Prepared,
Casey and Lynn
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